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Episode
Announcer: Welcome to SLP Nerd Cast. I am so thrilled and excited for today's episode. Today's episode came about in a slightly unique way. Um, we have two guests with us today, Dr.
Chelsea Preve [00:02:00] and almost Dr. Corina Scia here with us today. These two brilliant human beings have been on the podcast before, uh, but they're here today for a really specific reasons. So a ways back, an article came across our desk that was one of the most powerful and influe influential articles that I had ever read, that several individuals on the SLP nerd cast team had ever read.
There were text messages with links about this. There were congratulations being sent to both of these individuals. And we asked them to come onto the show and talk about this article, and they said, yes. And I'm, we were so thrilled. Um, and before we kind of get into it, I was hoping that the two of you would.
Tell us a little bit about yourselves, and also welcome. I'm so glad that you're both here. Hi. Thank you for having us. Hey. [00:03:00] All right. So for those of, uh, for those of our listeners who have never heard you on the show with us before, tell us a little bit about your backgrounds, um, and what brought you to writing this article.
Chelsea Privette: Yeah, so I am Chelsea Perve. I am an assistant professor at UT Austin. Um, my, uh, background, I actually started in Spanish and linguistics and kind of came to speech language pathology through linguistics. Um, and so I came to this work in a way that wasn't, um, mostly wasn't reflected in the training that I was getting.
Um, and so I've always been intentionally. Uh, transdisciplinary in my approach to, um, research and practice. And so this paper that we're [00:04:00] discussing today, um, is consistent with that and, and came out of, um, not just my professional experience, but my personal experience. Um. My own language practices and, um, a particular experience, um, that I write about in the paper, um, in terms of the way people talk about Translanguaging, um, in a way that, um, is not reflective of the fullness of what it is and how, um, and, we'll, I'm sure we'll get into this later, but how, um, transformative, um, radical frameworks get distilled down in ways that they lose their, um, transformational thrust.
And so that is what inspired this paper is to kind of bring people back [00:05:00] and say, um, it's not, we're not just talking about language. It's much bigger than that.
Karina Saechao: How about you, Corina? Bam. Okay. Period. Well, hi, I'm Karina and I am a researcher, scientist, scholar practitioner. Um, I get to, I think really in, you know, like my positioning right now.
Um, I get to wrap up working on my PhD here in the, this last year, um, but also still get to serve, um, via clinical practice and. You know, what this really means, it kind of looks like is really being, um, I think thoughtful, you know, like about like how I do research and like how I bring my research into practice.
And so writing this paper I think was super timely in terms of, um, really thinking about and spending a lot of time with, um, black a, a e [00:06:00] speakers. Quite frankly, it's the reason why I went back to school for the PhD. I could not like really understand, you know, like as a, a young clinician, I couldn't really understand like what we were looking for, what we were talking about.
Because as a black language speaker, um, what I was taught in school and then like what I was told through CEUs, like after I graduated from school, like just didn't match my experience. And so, um, in addition to all of the things that Chelsea said, this paper was needed, I think to be. Plain and clear the way it was written, and we'll get to that in in just a second.
Um, to really be able to, I think like validate other clinicians and researchers who particularly looked like myself, but then also to really start to, um, give I think like words and like something else to think about in relationship to black language, um, to other clinicians. So, you know, and to other researchers.
So I'm really excited for [00:07:00] the conversation today. I am really excited to, um, continue beyond the conversations that we've been having about black language in our field. Um, and hopefully this will kind of spark, you know, something in some of the listeners today to, um, really start to think beyond like where we've been, which is a stagnant place.
Announcer: Mm-hmm. I love these perspectives. I can't wait to dive into all of this material. Um, I think the, what's something that you've already said that really struck a chord with me is how professional development falls short, uh, and how training can fall short in so many, in so many ways. Um, and how the status quo in so many instances from an industry perspective just perpetuates itself and how, um, this article is, I think, a tremendous contribution in the idea of shifting our thinking, doing things differently, and talking about [00:08:00] things that you know are powerful.
Um, before we get into it, I need to read our learning objectives. After listening to this episode, participants will be able to self-report knowledge gains related to concepts of Translanguaging. Participants will also be able to self-report knowledge gains related to describing language as a sociopolitical construct.
For anyone listening who would like to learn more about the financial and non-financial disclosures for this course, those pieces of information will be listed in the show notes. They are also listed on the landing page for this course. And finally, anyone who would like to use this episode as professional development, the link to the post-test is also included in the show notes and on the course landing page.
Boring stuff is behind us. Um, I wanna say and kind of shout out this article before we get into the real, the depth of it, uh, because it won an, it won an award. [00:09:00] Um, so it's kind of, you know, justification that our celebratory vi, our celebratory feels were, were very justified. I wonder if you could tell us about the award that this article won.
Chelsea Privette: Yes. So, um, just a few weeks ago, we were notified that this paper received the 2024 editors award for perspectives of the Asha special interest groups.
Announcer: I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. What does that, what do, what does that say to you that it won an award? What does that communicate to you as an author in the landscape of academia and all that that goes along with that?
Chelsea Privette: That's actually a complicated question for me because people keep telling me that they're not surprised. I was kind of [00:10:00] surprised, um, because, um, because black language is often not recognized in this way, especially when, um, it comes from a place or is presented in a way that, um. Intentionally goes against institutional norms.
And so one of the major ways that we do that with this paper is to write the paper in black language. And so, um, while we write to an audience that, um, is kind of looking for this kind of work, um, it's, it, that audience, I wouldn't say is representative of our field as a whole. And so it did come as a bit of a surprise, but,
I feel like me and Karina had this conversation and, and she said it [00:11:00] better than I did.
Karina Saechao: We have had so many conversations, but also I was super surprised. I was like, I think mouth agape for forget seconds or minutes. Okay. Hours, days, it's still a gate. Okay. And I am surprised because, you know, like it, one, I think that as Chelsea suggested, like we, these are not the papers that we get in our field of speech, language and hearing sciences.
Um, and we'll talk about it here soon enough, but the reality is, is that our teachings around, um, black language essentially are that, you know, it's always in, in, um, reference to disability. Right. And I think that when we really get to think about like, the beauty of black language, you know, like the beauty is not represented, you know, like in the text that we get to [00:12:00] read.
Finally, you know, like, it feels like for once, you know, like we really get to, not only did we get to read a text, right, because we wrote it, right. But we get to, we got to write, you know, like an article about all of the kind of, so many of the best things about black language, but then got to pull from all of these sources to talk about like why black language is not actually mutually intelligible with mainstream American English.
Right? And I think like getting to hear the reflections from other people about why they know that's true. Um, as well as pointed out in this paper, you know, like really getting to help people, like really like rethink, you know, like about what they thought they knew about black language has been the most beautiful part of the conversations that we've had.
Um, but lastly, I wanna say that I'm also just kind of, for me, you know, like every now and then I'm like, wow, you know, like there's a glimmer of hope. You know, like not just for myself as a black [00:13:00] clinician. Less than 4% of us. Right? But a glimmer of hope for the children. I think that we get to serve particularly and specifically, um, the black children, you know, that clinicians get to serve, to really start to think about like, how, how have I been thinking about these children?
Because of course we know the reality is, is that you can't think about language without thinking about race, right? Like they're inextricably linked. So being able to really look at the kids and like see their shine and like see their genius, see their creativity, see the beauty in their language. Like if this helps people to do that, and if this helps us to have more conversations that don't always pit black language against disorder, then we're doing something right.
And so, like with the editors award, quite frankly, it gives a larger reach to this paper and therefore it gives a larger reach to the conversation. So I, for that in and of itself, baby, maybe we're going forward in this little field of speech, you know.
Chelsea Privette: Yes. I like how you said that, a glimmer of hope [00:14:00]
Announcer: I love, and I love how you pitted that against the status quo of talking about black, black language in the context of disability.
Which brings me to my next question related to tone and, and it kind of touching on the tone of the article, the impetus of the article, and really one of the, our initial reaction when, when we first read it, when we first read it. So I'm, I have it in front of me here and I'm just gonna read from the page the title of the first section.
It says. So, boom. That is the title of the first section of this article. Okay. Never in my academic career clinical career have I picked up a piece of research, picked up a pub, peer reviewed publication, and thought, oh my God, what, what is, what is gonna happen next? Right. I wonder if you could tell us, based on [00:15:00] just that initial title, the title of the article, what was the tone that you wanted to set with these first words of the first section of this article?
I so, boom,
Karina Saechao: we are
listen. Okay. In black language and black culture, that means I'm getting ready to tell you something. Y'all better listen up. Right. And that of course is like the thread that has, you know, that we were able to pull all throughout the paper of like, I am getting ready to drop knowledge. Listen if you want to and if you don't, goodbye.
Right? Like this isn't for you then, you know, and so like the I, so boom, I think gives a little bit of a foreshadowing to this paper is also written in African American English. You didn't know it yet, but Youa, you know, and the other part of it, you know, in terms of like really thinking about the tone [00:16:00] was really helping people, like how do you teach somebody something or make a point without doing the thing, right?
So like doing the thing in this case was using African American English to be able to express. The points and the arguments that we wanted to express in the paper. Right? And so like of course as you're reading it, you get to see the ways in which African American English is used to drive the argument home, right Around black language being translanguaging, right?
Like black languaging and how we use language, you know, and particularly black folks, right? And, and black language, you know, like what that means for Translanguaging. Up until recently, translanguaging is not a word that we had would have ever heard in our field specifically, right? You have to go outside of our field, particularly into education to be able to better understand or even think about what Translanguaging is like.
We have been so caught up in code switching, you know, [00:17:00] like here in. In our field of speech, language, hearing sciences, because we want so bad, you know, to bring anybody, including black children who speak a a e, right? Who we want to bring them so bad into being as adjacent to white mainstream English as possible.
And so, of course the problem with that is that children learn best in their first language. Their first language is black language, right? So like, how do we make the point, you know, and how do we set the tone right? That, um, black language is a language that's all its own, and we wanna make sure that that's valued and that as a result they're seen, heard, and supported in the educational institutions.
So the tone is, you gonna read this and you gonna like it. And if you don't, oh well step to the bottom back, get back. I
Announcer: love that so much.
Chelsea Privette: Yes. And, and we wanted to pack that into the title as well. Um, and the, the title really came out of my [00:18:00] frustration with the conversations that I was having about black language, um, and translanguaging, particularly in multilingual spaces, um, where, um.
Black language, if acknowledged at all, is only marginally acknowledged. Um, in ways, um, that black language gets diminished, even as people are saying that they want to, to bring black language into the conversation. It's often done in ways that, um, is still marginalizing. And so in the title you'll see that the is is in all caps.
Black languaging is translanguaging is my direct response to these conversations where, um. I was being told that it's not. Um, and of course, the subtitle, we not just talking about it, we bout about it. Like going back to what Karina [00:19:00] said, like it's, it is, this isn't just a concept for us. This is what we do.
Like this is our lived experience. And, um, we putting it on the page for y'all to see.
Announcer: I love this. I have so many more questions and I, I think we, uh, before we go further, I am wondering if it's now is a good time for you all to help define Translanguaging for us, um, within the context of linguistics, uh, within the context of speech language pathology.
Chelsea Privette: Yeah. So, um, translanguaging, uh, simply put is. A person is using their whole linguistic repertoire, um, without regard to the ways that, um, we have been socialized to separate certain features into quote unquote different languages or different dialects. Um, and [00:20:00] so Translanguaging, um, came, um, about as a political stance about, um, the nature of language and.
Particularly in the education setting, um, what students are expected to do in terms of, um, standardized norms and, um, the production and assimilation to monolingual white mainstream English. Um, and so I want to emphasize here that it's not just about the language per se, but um, about the ways that, um, people are, um, implicitly and explicitly, um, taught to, to, um, self-censor, to self-police, [00:21:00] um, to, um.
Silo parts of their languages, um, part of their linguistic repertoire depending on where they are. Um, and so Translanguaging, um, is really representative of how language actually takes place in the brain, right? Like, we don't have separate boxes for our languages in our brains. It's all there together as our language.
Um, and so I, I think it's helpful because of particularly how we're situated in speech language pathology to talk about translanguaging in opposition to code switching. Um, because code switching is the term that most people are familiar with. Um, and it refers to. How, um, [00:22:00] communicators use one particular set of features for one context and switch, quote unquote, to a different set of features in a different context.
And really what that concept communicates is that there are spaces where certain kinds of languaging is not welcome. And while there are those who talk about code switching, um, with the language of empowerment, I don't see it as an empowering framework. Um, and I, I get that. Um, that framing in terms of, because we live in a racialized society, um, where white mainstream English and is the norm being able to switch to that language if that is not your, um, your primary language gives you access to certain [00:23:00] spaces that you wouldn't have otherwise.
Um, the problem with that though is that it reinforces linguistic racism. Um, and so Translanguaging is a truly empowering way of thinking about language number one, because it's what people actually do with language when they don't have these constraints, um, imposed upon them. Um, and so. That's why when we talk about language, we have to talk about power.
We talk, we have to talk about the ratio, linguistic ideologies, the ways that race and language are co-constructed and reinforced through, um, these policies and practices that are often, um, described as being neutral or helpful or whatever. Um, [00:24:00] translanguaging, um, it, it pushes us to call into question those practices in the ways that, um, even when we're saying we're honoring all of these different languages and all of these different dialects, um, it allows us to, um, to have a better.
Lens a clearer perspective on the ways that we perpetuate the systems that, um, continue to marginalize, um, racially and linguistically minoritized people and students in the context of our paper.
Announcer: I wanna follow that up with a quote that I highlighted, and I was joking with the two of you before we hit the record button.
I highlighted it in three different colors, so anybody who's watching the YouTube video can see, see my screen. [00:25:00] Um, and there is a piece of this quote that I, that has resonated even further hearing your description of Translanguaging. And it's on page 66. So in its purest form, translanguaging allows us to communicate everything we are and hope to be.
And that is just, you know, a speech language pathologist. We study language syntax, morphology. No, no, no. This is so much larger and so much more powerful. And it brings me kind of to my next question about this, these ideas of discomfort that you mentioned elsewhere in the paper. And I wonder if you could tell us about the components of discomfort that are around these ideas.
Karina Saechao: The discomfort exists. I think Chelsea alluded to it already, the there's discomfort because the reality is that in our society and [00:26:00] at large. Language is power, right? And how you use language is a part of the level of power that you're perce perceived to have, right? So, um, for example, I am sure that most black people here, you know, who are listening at least once in their life, either they or someone that they know, um, has been told that they are articulate, right?
And really that's like a, you know, the wor the worst. You know, that people think that they're complimenting, um, black folks by calling them articulate. But really it's like, um, you know. What's the word I'm looking for? You know, it's like a undercover compliment, but it's not a compliment. You know? There's a better word for that, you know?
But anyway, a backhanded compliment. There you go. Thank you. A backhanded compliment. That's the word I was [00:27:00] looking for, you know, and so the problem with this, like when we're really thinking about like, language, um, and language isn't just, it isn't just the words that are like coming out of our mouth, right?
Like language is who we are, right? It's like who we hope to be, right? Like as in the quote. And so if you get to take your whole self to a place, if you get to show up right to school, for example, and you know that when you get there, you're. Not gonna be, your intelligence isn't gonna be questioned, you know, because you're using, you marked or you didn't mark this, you know, certain morphological feature or, you know what I mean?
Like if the assumption already is that you are smart, right? And the assumption is that you're smart because of the way that you use language one, right? Like that's problematic. But if you already have, you know, like your educator, that's like bring your whole self, come here and learn. We're gonna do all of this together, then anybody, right?
Like any child gets to show up and like do their work and give their best work [00:28:00] to it. African American English. Black language is really a language that is efficient, right? Like the core of black language is that it was built out of, uh, resilience. It was built out of like a necessity and survival of our ancestors.
And yet it has persisted despite, you know, like many, many, many decades, centuries of you, if you will. Um, particularly, you know, like of white supremacy, ideology, trying to tamp it down. It is a really, really beautiful language, you know, so much, so much so that, you know, like we can express in black language.
Very efficiently concepts that only inefficiently can be expressed. You know, like in mainstream American English, you know? So one of the most common examples, um, is like habitual B, right? Like she'd be going to the store, she'd be hanging out with her friends, right? And so like the way that you would, you know, kind of translate that to mainstream American English is like, oh, she goes to the store every Wednesday around two [00:29:00] o'clock, or she goes to the store really often, at least every week at the same time.
You know, like there's no efficient way to do that, but in black language, right? Like we have so many concepts, we have many different ways, more than we'll ever have in mainstream English to be able to express tense and time, right? And so anyway, I feel like at this point I'm going down the rabbit hole.
But if we think about, you know, like, um, if we really think about it overall, like you can't, you know, like as, as already has been talked about, like you can't really talk about any language, right? Like not just black language. You can't really talk about any language without also talking about its relationship to power and how that's upheld through the institutions.
And of course, one of the major institutions and the one that we're talking about today is in relationship to schools where we spend most of our waking hours from the time that we're very, very young. You know, some people start, I started at 18 months school, right? Um, [00:30:00] and then of course I'm still in school in my mid thirties child, you know, and so anyway, then I worked in the school.
Listen, I ain't never existed outside of the institution. So think about how all those years, right, of like my relationship with language and power. So anyway. Through this paper is how we take back our power. But,
Announcer: you know, I wanna add to that by finishing my quote. I did this on purpose. I read it in two pieces.
Okay. I'm gonna start at the beginning again so that we can get a fuller picture of, of what, what is enc, what you all are sharing as fully encompassed in this. So in its purest form, translanguaging allows us to communicate everything we are and hope to be.
However, the reality is that minoritized people rarely get to trans language freely because those linguistic choices are mechanisms by which we navigate multiple systems of oppression. So for us, translanguaging is resistance. Black language is resistance. [00:31:00] Thinking about that quote, I wonder how you could share with us the contrast of the power in that message against what you've already discussed, that black language is more frequently talked about in the face of disorder.
And those two, those two concepts are, are very contradictory to me. What can you tell us about that?
Chelsea Privette: Yeah, so building off of what Karina just said,
in the face of so many different forms of oppression and, um, such, um, uh. Persistent, um, measures to try to tramp out marginalized languaging practices. These practices persist because they do embody, um, our identity and our history. Um, and I quote, um, Anahi [00:32:00] coats in, in the paper. They made us into a race.
We made ourselves into a people because I think we can also, um, apply that when we're talking about black language. Um, it is a way of, um, preserving who we are in a society that tries to, um, erase not only our history, but our contemporary lives in both. Literal and symbolic ways. Um, and so, um, when I, when we wrote that Translanguaging is resistance, black languaging is resistance.
That what that is, what we are getting at is that we continue these language practices as a testament that we are still [00:33:00] here. And we will continue to be who we are. Even in the face of, , practices , that suppress, that language in order to gain institutional access. Um, and that's what we mean when we say that, um, that mar marginalized people, um, are often not able to trans language freely because we know the stigma that comes with it.
Um, we know that interviewing for certain positions, for example, if we go in speaking black language, that is an automatic rejection, right? And so part of Translanguaging as a practice in the face of that kind of marginalization requires like this constant calculation [00:34:00] of the context that we're in. What is the racial makeup of that context, both in terms of who is there and what cultural norms are being enacted.
Um, what are the expectations? Um, what are our goals in that specific space? Right? So it's a constant calculation in terms of deciding which features we are going to use. And so in that sense, translanguaging becomes, um, constrained because those, um, those oppressive factors are, are being factored into the calculations that we're making.
Um, so it's, it's not a liberated choice, right? To, um. [00:35:00] Translanguaging. And that's why we say in the purest sense, translanguaging is that is expressing everything we are and hope to be, um, without having to consider all of these things. And unfortunately, that's not the reality that we live in right now.
And, um, also for that reason, I think that's why so many people lack the imagination to, um, to resist in ways that push back. Um, and I, I think that that has a lot to do with, um, why we have been so stagnant as a field in terms of how we're talking about how we're thinking about black language because we're always trying to fit it into the current system, but.
As a liberating [00:36:00] framework. It it does. It can't exist within the current system. And so you have to have an imagination for what could be rather than what is.
Announcer: I love that so much. So often when I talk to both of you, I find it so hard to speak after you speak because nothing that I say is going to be as articulate as as that, and I, as you were talking, I was just reflecting on some of the earlier things that you mentioned in our conversation related to the lens of disorder, right?
And how often this comes up in the field of speech, language pathology, and the stagnation in our field. And as you just very eloquently said, lack of imagination, lack of creativity. One of the things that you talk about in this article is something you refer to as appropriateness based approaches. And I wonder if you could.
Unpack first what, what that is and how one might go [00:37:00] about rejecting those concepts.
Mm-hmm.
Karina Saechao: So. I think just to go back really quickly to the framing of, um, deficit versus disorder and essentially, you know, like what we mean by that is, you know, like for so long, all through grad school and the early part of my career, um, we were, I, I was taught, you know, like either, either they, um, speak, you know, disorder, they, or they speak African American English or they have a disorder, right?
One, not, not that you couldn't have both, right? So like this kind of deficit framework was like, oh, no, no, no, no. They don't, they don't have a language impairment. They just speak African American English, right? And so the reason that I got, um, that I was really in. Ready to come back to school to work toward my PhD was because I kept getting students right, like coming across my desk.
Um, black students in particular who had been struggling [00:38:00] in schools for years, um, I worked at a high school for a high school district. Um, and so essentially what this meant is from the time that they entered kindergarten, um, all the way up until they came across my desk in high school, the student study team desk, not just mine, right?
Um, that they were, um, essentially in. You know, like we were saying, and they had marked three or four times in their file like that. The speech therapist rejected the, um, assessment and thus the entire team rejected the assessment because the speech therapist was telling them that they were struggling in school, um, because they spoke, uh, African American English, but also that they didn't have a language disorder because they spoke African American English.
And of course the field at some point was like, well, that's ridiculous. You know, like if a white, mainstream American English speaker, um, and particularly a white person, right? If they can have a language disorder, then that means anybody can have a language disorder, right? We learned, uh, a little bit about that, but like, let's be real.
Graduate school just also isn't preparing us in that, right? Um, for working with kids who don't speak, um, white mainstream American English, [00:39:00] but then. After that, after that came the dialect within Disorders framework. Right. And so really that was a stepping stone at this point to where we are now. Because still in just the same, in the dialects within Disorders framework, still just the same.
We're still in some ways talking about like African American English only in relationship to, you know, like having a disorder or there being a deficit. Right. Um, and so in this paper, of course, we're like moving away from even that of like, can we let black language speakers be black language speakers?
Does the conversation about black language always have to be in relationship to whether they have a disorder or a deficit? And so, you know, like one of the, one of the considerations and you know, some of the things to think about as we're thinking about these appropriate ba appro appropriateness based models, right?
Is, you know, when we're thinking about like how, how do we support them, right? We support them [00:40:00] by. Doing what we doing for all the other kids. You know, like we support them by like not perking up every single time we hear a Noel marked, you know, like a linguistic feature. And this appropriateness is like how, how close to white, mainstream English, um, are they?
Right? Like if you are, for example, in a classroom with the child, the child has raised their hand to say whatever their response is to, you know, whatever question is asked by the teacher and you catch yourself ready to correct them, right? Like, if you're anticipating they're black, I might have to correct their language and you interrupt their thought.
To correct their language instead of listening to the content. You know, like of what they're actually saying in response to the initial question. Like, that's a part of the problem, right? Because that's leading them back to wanting them to be as close to white mainstream English as possible. Right? But that's not what we want school is for.
Teaching school is for learning, right? So like if you have the [00:41:00] content, then you've learned, you know, so I mean there's so many ways to, to think about this. I'm gonna tag on, um, to Chelsea real quick 'cause I feel myself going down this like, you know, little hole, this little spiral of like, and another thing.
Um, so I'm gonna let Chelsea take over to say the rest.
Chelsea Privette: No, that was good. Um, I'll just add that like in, um, you, we, we take that term from um. Uh, researched by, um, Jonathan Rosa and Nelson Flores, um, and the, uh, ratio linguistic ideologies. Um, in terms of thinking about, um, kind of appropriateness based models, kind of in the classic sense of the term in the education space, is this idea that, um, you teach students that yes, you can speak, um, your quote unquote home language, which is another [00:42:00] problem word.
Um, but at school or in an interview or at your job, then you need to speak white mainstream English. So the appropriateness base, um, refers to the idea of which language is appropriate, where according to these, um, social norms that are infused with racial linguistic ideologies.
Karina Saechao: It didn't occur to me until just right now that I should have actually defined it.
I was like straight to the example. Let's talk about this. Okay. So anyway, thank you Chelsea.
Announcer: I appreciate all of the context that you all are providing, and I'm thinking about people who are listening to this who are maybe new to concepts of Translanguaging, uh, and really interested in moving away from this paradigm. You [00:43:00] mentioned in the article that you had once engaged in appropriateness based approaches and have since rejected them.
And I wonder if you could share what that process was like, um, as a means of providing information for how a listener could also follow in those steps and start to reject this paradigm?
Chelsea Privette: Yeah, for me, um, I became, I became more and more uncomfortable as I started listening to more and more students who, um, speak black language. So, um, me and Karina, our stories are very similar in terms of, um, our families knowing the stigma of black language, um, wanted us to speak white mainstream English to, so that we could go into school and not have that to be a barrier already [00:44:00] knowing that our race was going to pose a problem for certain people.
Um, and so. I went through my, um, my grade school years not experiencing linguistic racism in the classroom because that was, um, an intentional result of the choices my parents made. Um, particularly my mother and I actually have a paper coming out about the differences between their approaches to language.
Um, and so how like different decisions are made even within the same family. Um, and once I entered into the field of speech language pathology, um, when I was in grad school, I ended up, um, doing this. It was a code switching program, um, [00:45:00] to quote unquote support students in gaining skills in white mainstream English.
It was an appropriateness based model. That was the model that I was taught, um, in grad school, which by the way, was at an HBCU, right? We talked a lot about black language, more so than in most programs, but it was still rooted in this appropriateness based, um, approach. Um, but having these conversations with students in classrooms, um, not in a clinical setting, but in the general education classroom, um, about their experiences, um.
Bearing witness to their resistance, um, to white mainstream English for whatever reason. Um, I started to feel uncomfortable with that kind of approach because that approach didn't honor their lived experience. Um, [00:46:00] and so it, it was really, um, once I was mostly done with my PhD, that I had to reeducate myself in terms of, um, what.
Like there has to be another way. And it wasn't in speech language pathology. Um, and so that's how I came into Translanguaging and learning about ratio, linguistic ideologies and culturally sustaining pedagogies. It took a lot of reading and a lot of unlearning. Um, and so, um, I started to reimagine what our practice as LPs can look like, um, and ways that we can go about our practice in ways that, um, that can, that, that treat black language as the norm for the children who, who speak it, um, [00:47:00] as the norm sometimes in a whole school.
Right? And so, um. It's a constant, um, reevaluation of the everyday practices of how you're framing black language, um, the, uh, deficit language that is used around it in addition to, um, what, what you are welcoming into the classroom, into your clinic space. Because oftentimes what I see happening, um, when clinicians are quote unquote honoring the other language, other dialect, whatever it is, whatever terminology is being used, is that they end up ignoring black language and trying to practice in a way that says, [00:48:00] okay, how can I.
Kind of sequester the black language away and still find the deficit. Um, or how can I assess in a way where, um, I'm not, I'm not counting features of black language as errors. We're just gonna push them aside. And even then you're, you're still only assessing part of a student's language, right. And. That's, that is, um, inevitably going to reproduce a deficit framework because you're only looking at part of their language, right?
The part that you are ignoring because it doesn't match white mainstream English because it is unmarked and it quote unquote overlaps with disorder in white, mainstream English speaking [00:49:00] children, right? Those are integral parts of black language. And so when you are not looking at the whole system, you're not doing well for that student, right?
So instead of ignoring what I'm saying is make it central, make it,
in, in a system that, um, is racist to be anti-racist, you have to be intentional about making space for black language.
Karina Saechao: And that's a quote. Yeah, I was going back and forth around like. I was like, do do I need to even share this story? I thought all of that great stuff Chelsea just said. Um, but I think, um, yes, because, and it's brief, but I think it's going to resonate, um, you know, with, um, the educators and practitioners who are listening [00:50:00] and, you know, long story short, the short of it.
You know, like when I was working at the high school, um, I was asked to do, we were like talking about different ways, um, that children, the students could be eligible, um, for special education. For many of them, even though they had been in special education, um, classes for many, many years, most of their schooling career, some of them didn't even know, um, that they had IEPs, right.
So we were looking to change that, the team that I was working on. Um, but in addition to that, you know, like some of them just wanted to learn more about themselves. Beautiful, right? So of course the team called on me, um, to talk about, you know, like the eligibility, um, of speech or language impairment. And so essentially I went to go, um, and do my little chat with the students.
They could ask me whatever they wanted to ask. I had a whole PowerPoint presentation ready to go. And so not only did I talk about what, you know, like, at least within the parameters of the institution, um, what speech or language [00:51:00] impairment is defined as. I spent a lot of time also talking about what it was not right.
So I was working with a large bilingual population. We had African American English speakers on our campus, like the whole nine, right? Um, and so I remember I had like gotten to these slides, right where I was talking about what it's not, I got to the slide about black language and so I was like, here are examples, right?
Of black language, you know. So then from the back of the classroom, y'all from the back, I hear this kid say, so you mean ghetto English? And I was like, oh no, what we not gonna do is this. Right? And so I had recognized though my own positioning, right? Like how I had even perpetuated that, right? Like for the students, because in the first, like two, two and a half years of working on that campus, I was about two and a half years in at that point, right?
And so in that whole time, I was like dressing to the nines to go to work. You know what I mean? So that they wouldn't mistake me for a kid. I was like 25, right? Um, and they were high school [00:52:00] students, bigger than. Okay. And so like I was like dressed into the nines, but then also as the speech language pathologist, and quite frankly, one of the only black people working on the campus as an educator, but like all the way, you know, like from the custodians and paraprofessionals, like all the way up to our administrators, right?
Like I, I felt like at the time, you know, that I was, you know, like kind of, you know, people's relationship with blackness for a variety of re reasons, right? But then also people's relationship with, um, you know, like black language and, you know, like what it means to be professional. Just all this problematic stuff.
Chelsea and my story is very similar. My mom came outta corporate America, but I made a decision in that moment. In that moment that something had to change, right? So like I was and am right? A master's level practitioner, right? And they needed to see that you can be all of the things, right? And so for me, in that moment, it meant to, it meant that I could show up [00:53:00] as a black woman who speaks black language, right?
And so I went on after that, like literally beginning that day, I started modeling black language in the classroom because they needed to see, right? That black language is not a poor language. It's not a ghetto language. It's not whatever. You know, like frame people wanna put on it whatever adjective you wanted to use, that's negative to describe black language.
It's not that, right? Like black language is all these things, right? Like it's beautiful, it's creative, it's legitimate, it's resistance, right? And so I wanted to be able to model that for the students. And so, and I did, and it changed the game for so many of them. So many of them felt seen, heard and validated for the first time.
I've never gotten so many knocks on my office door ever before in my life, right? And I'll leave the story at least at this, right? Me and a good friend, colleague were like walking through the quad one day and one of our students essentially had said something to me. She had used, um, I think habitual b, but.
She had music, a grammatical [00:54:00] marker in African American English, and then, and then our white counselor corrected her, right? So we're at, this is after school. We're just walking along singing our song, right? And so then this student just happened to be in the class at that time, right? And so she looked over, saw me and my friend walking in the quad, and she was like, no, that's African American English, right Miss?
And I was like, you go girl. And you better believe that I validated her from all the way across the quad. And I cannot even, like, when I think about moments of pride, like in my educational journey, that was one of them because for the first time ever, she knew that what she was saying was like, legitimate.
And then I just happened to be right place, right time to back her up, you know? And so like, I want us to like, you know, take that with us as we head into the new school year as well.
Announcer: I love that story. I love that story. So, so, so much. And I'm gonna try. And unpack tiny, tiny little bits of it [00:55:00] to lead us to the next question and topic, which is essentially, which is really looking at justice oriented culture and how many of us listening are not working in places just like the school you described, where there is a justice oriented culture.
Um, what the pieces of your story that I wanna unpack are just kind of taking for granted that. Power of self-reflection and self positioning. Right? So in that story, you're like, I realized that I, what, what your experience was. That was, that could have shifted the nature of your students' experiences or your coworkers experiences or your, you know, how other people are experiencing the culture.
And I think that that is, you know, we're kind of making the assumption and talking through all of this that for those people, for people who are listening, that that is a piece of this, right? That is a huge piece of this is, is self-reflection considering your own positioning. And I want to kind [00:56:00] of transition that into the interaction between who we are as professionals, the work that we've done within ourselves, and how we're showing up in our classrooms, how we're showing up for our students, and interacting with rigid systems that are likely influenced by those concepts of institutional racism and how we might as professionals show up to, as I say in my notes here, neutralize that to a point where a black language can exist and shine and take up space.
What can you, how can you walk us through what that might look like or how you've experienced that or how a listener might experience that?
Chelsea Privette: I think SOPs really need to recognize the power that we have in the educational space because. The ways that black language is [00:57:00] pathologized is, um, and we talk about this in the paper, it is that that approach is further legitimated, if that's a word, by, by our practice as clinicians coming, um, from a field that medicalize language, right?
So it gives not just it, it makes these, um, these social hierarchies. It, it gives it a pseudoscientific legitimacy because we are clinicians, right? And that's the kind of power that we have. So think about how, how to flip that and use that same power to educate the people in your space. For me, it always starts with education, right?
You are the communication specialist in your school. If you are a school-based SLP, [00:58:00] when you understand. What language is right? From a sociocultural perspective? From the a sociopolitical perspective, right? From, um, the, the ways that language reflects power, um, how power is expressed through language, not just by the group who is considered dominant, but by marginalized people.
Um, you're able to educate from a space that that creates space, right? For all of these different ways of languaging. Um, and extending that to include our students with disabilities, right? And the, and recognizing the. The, [00:59:00] uh, validity in all ways of languaging. In all ways of communicating. Um, just like Karina said in the story that she just told, she positioned herself as an educator, right?
We're not just educating the students that we see. We're also educating our peers, our colleagues, um, because the. The practices can't change if our knowledge doesn't change, if the way we're thinking doesn't change. Um, and I wanna put a plug in for another paper that I wrote. Um, I think it's 2023. Um, developing a, a critical practice of speech, language and hearing where, um, I go into more detail about what that means and about how we position ourselves as educators, as advocates, um, in the educational [01:00:00] space to change the narrative around marginalized languaging practices, um, of validating the.
Choices that families are making around language with their children. Um, educating teachers who come to us with concerns about a particular student that clearly reflects racial linguistic ideologies about this student being prepared to push back and to say, no, actually this is good language. Right? And so allowing that space, and I know it's easier said than done sometimes, but having, um, a presence in the classroom in a way that that carves out that space, I think is important too.
Karina Saechao: Yes. 'cause the call is coming from inside the classroom child, and I love everything [01:01:00] that, um, Chelsea just said. And I think that, um, as a practitioner, the best, best, best. Best outcomes that I have ever had with a child, um, or with a team, with a teacher, with, you know, like caregivers and parents, like the best outcomes have always been in partnership and in collaboration, which also means getting into the classroom.
Right? So it is, it is not necessarily that we can just, you know, like sit around, make these suggestions, go do this, go do this, go do this. Right. If they could go do this, this, this, this, and this, they would be speech therapists too. I mean, maybe. Right. Like everybody's not a speech therapist, so like, I don't, don't take it the wrong way now, you know.
But what I mean by that is like we are. We are education professionals as well as, and especially language professionals, right? Like we are language and communication experts on the campus. It's time that we take our [01:02:00] positions to do and be those things. So that also means, right, that we get to show up in partnership in the classroom to model, right?
To be able to show, like when children say, do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Write these kinds of things, right? Like, what are our initial reactions? Being able to observe those reactions are really powerful for the ways in which we change how educators and peers engage with each other in the classroom. To say that the things, the things that they wanna say, right?
It is more likely than not that we will have the language, the thought process, the, you know, concern, the care, the empathy, right? To be able to be like, actually I think what you said is great because, right? Like even being able to. Respond first, model a response. You know, think about those things. Like we can't underestimate, you know, like how important those things are.
And I do agree with Chelsea that if we took a, even just a little bit more time, you know, to really think about like how, [01:03:00] how do we and reflect about like how do we take our place, right? Like, um, in our educational institutions, you know, whatever institution that you're in to really think about like how you want to affect change.
System-wide change in your school. So I wanna be clear, right, that like, change begins at home, you know, so like you can make change, you can make impact by the very things that you're doing in your local spaces, right? So if you're doing the thing at your school and you're finding something that works, then you know, get out and tell all the rest of us about it.
Um, but I do really want to kind of impress upon people and really empower people to like, start with, start with reflection, you know, and then go into action and spend a lot of time, um, you know, like with the kids thinking about their experiences and their stories, listening, really listening to the things that they're saying about some of the experiences that they're having, um, also in their classrooms, and then being able to really respond to that.
So, yeah, that was such a good question. Thanks, Kate.
Announcer: I could [01:04:00] talk to you both for a million years. Uh, we, before we've started this conversation, before we hit the record button, we briefly discussed the depth of this article and how everything that you all cover, there's no way we could do it justice within one 60 minute episode.
Uh, so anybody who is listening highly, highly recommend to find this article, read it in its entirety. The link will be in the show notes in our final few minutes. I'm wondering if each of you would be comfortable sharing your favorite quote. So you both wrote it, right? You know, the, I already shared my favorite.
You all, you know, you know the ins and outs of the words that you put on the page, and I would love to know your favorite quotes and, and elaborating on them a little bit.
Yes,
Karina Saechao: listen. I had so many favorite quotes. The [01:05:00] whole thing is a favorite quote. Can we just, first, I believe you. I believe you. And it, I don't know that this one is my favorite as much as like we've kind of hinted out and talked about it and I just feel like we need to like wrap it back around here one more time.
Um, to really be able to kind of like drive home the languaging experiences, um, of black language users. And this is really to, um, really kind of provide a contrast to, uh, the, the over conversation that we have about code switching. So my favorite quote is, first of all, comma, not all black languaging people also speak white mainstream English, nor do all black languaging.
People want to. While many of us were taught to code switch, this is not a practice of all black languaging people. For some people that's a choice. For others, it's a matter of exposure. [01:06:00] Which brings us to our second point. Not all schools have white mainstream English as the defacto language. Much of the literature, especially in speech language pathology, assumes that students will automatically learn to code switch once they spend enough time in school.
However, some schools don't have enough white mainstream English in the environment for that to be a reasonable expectation. And so I want people to like really sit with that. I want there to no longer be an assumption that all black languages also speak white mainstream English or that they want to.
Um, and I really want to, I think just draw home and draw attention to that marking a feature. Right. Overtly marking a feature like she is happy or she is going to the store versus she happy or she going to the store, does not necessarily mean that they're speaking mainstream American English and then that not marking the [01:07:00] feature means that they're speaking African American English.
You can be an African American English speaker, right, and market or not market. The beauty of it is that you could do whatever you want, right within a set of rules within the system. And so I, it is one of my favorites, but particularly the one that I chose to share out today, because I really do want people to understand that so many black people, so many black children, only speak black language.
And that is so beautiful. So as of course you go forth and as you think about the children that you're going to serve, as you think about being able to communicate with them, have conversations with them, if they land across your desk for an assessment, keep all of those things and all of the things that we've said here, um, in mind.
Kate Grandbois: Kelsey, I can't wait to hear your quote. It's been a cliffhanger.
Chelsea Privette: Yeah. So mine, I, uh. [01:08:00] I, I chose a quote that really gets at, um, we're talking about more than a language. Um, and this is also an excerpt where I, I give the, the quotes quote, despite their stigmatization, minoritized language practices persist and not by accident, they made us into a race.
We made ourselves into a people. Language is an integral part of the culture that unifies, sustains and empowers minoritized communities in the face of oppression. Language is a way to assert agency to reject suppression, to intentionally contradict dominant norms. Minoritized language practices give breath to the counter narrative of our survival.
So we name black language as a language to honor the leg, the [01:09:00] legacy of the traditions that ground us in a positive identity.
Announcer: I can't even dis begin to discuss the depth of this article. Uh, it is not, it's so hard to. Encapsulate all of this in one hour, as I've already said. Anyone who is listening, please follow the link in the show notes. Please go read this article, this award-winning article by these two brilliant human beings.
Quickly before we wrap up, I would like to thank our production team, just for the sake of saying thank you, so that conversations like this are possible. Uh, Dr. Anna Pauli, who makes our Ashes C possible, Tegan, a Hearn who keeps our project alive, is our project manager, Darren Lopez, our production assistant who produces course materials.
Tracy Callahan and Dr. Marybeth Schmidt, who consult related to our peer review process, our advisory board, who helps to elevate our [01:10:00] content. And last but not least, our two speakers for today, Dr. Chelsea Prevet and almost Dr. Corina Scha. There are really no words to that will, that I could even begin to offer that encapsulate the power of this article and I'm very grateful. Our entire nerd cast team is very grateful to both of you for the time that you put into writing this article and the time that you put into being here today. So thank you so much for being here.
It was fun. Thank
Karina Saechao: you for having us.
Announcer: I
Karina Saechao: agree. I love just spending my morning this way. Thank you for having us.
Outro
Kate Grandbois: Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study.
Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, [01:11:00] www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]
thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon.
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